Discvery Health show about family with 6 autistic children

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You are completely missing the point.

First, he did watch the show regularly.

If you haven't noticed, I am the Wrong Planet resident HATER. (My other username is JWRed). I am a hater because the God forsaken disorder Asperger's Syndrome has made me angry and bitter. So I choose to take out my anger on this message board.

He doesn't care what the psychiatrist says because by nature he is self centered and unfriendly. Either that, or he is a ret*d, which no one on this board will admit to. Which is it? What other choice is there besides the two I have mentioned?

Just because you don't understand something, doesn't mean it is not true.

Join the real world.

I am going to do an experiment. I am going to start going around and start telling everyone I have a favorite character on Benny & Joon. Let's see if anyone will say back "Which character?" or "Who's your favorite?" or "Aren't you going to tell me?"

I won't be surprised if they don't ask.

I'm sorry, I see how you could have understood me wrongly.

what I meant was- if you have a strong probability of your children being born with severe neurological diseases, then- in my pesonal opinion- you should abstain from procreating, for the sake of the society that will have to take care of your children their whole life, while they are going to go through nothing but ordeal.

aspergers traits are a blessing- I wish more people would have them. in some families though, there are genes that render people uncapable of achieveing anything, ever, and in my personal opinion- if someone is aware of such a defective gene going down their genealogical tree, it's their duty to abstain from procreation.

Okay, if this guy said "I have a favorite character on the show" to me, and then proceeded to be silent, I'd wonder why he's not doing the obvious thing and saying the name of the character. I might ask who the character is, but I might assume that, since he hadn't said it, his first statement was enough, and he didn't feel like expounding. (Is expounding a word? Why do I have the strange feeling it's not?)

In all honesty, though, I suppose there's a pretty decent chance that I would ask him. Not necessarily, though. I'm really not sure, since I haven't recorded and analyzed any of my conversations to see how often stuff like this happens.

I saw portions of it. I was mainly interested to see whether the alleged 'aspie look' was something you could see. The oldest boy reminded me of my middle school years (though I would have used a broom instead of picking up food off the floor by hand).

I caught the psychiatrists' 'prompt', watching the poor fella sit there. I probably would have done the same thing at his age, but I've 'learned' the condition/response train going by here.

The husband lost his job trying to take care of one of the kids. I presume he has another, but I think they're just poor...6 kids will do that to you.

My missus told the assembled people around 'that's what Dad has'...which was not something I wanted her to do. While I'm not ashamed, I just want the option to reveal or not reveal to people whether I am what I am.

people don't always get along, so social skills are not all there is to it. skills need to come into it too.

as for the show, did not see it.

"I have a favourite Spongebob character" is not a common usage of a sentence in conversation, especially when used by a much older person. I don't get why they expect this boy to respond in a typical fashion to atypical conversation.

A more appropriate usage would have been "Guess who my favourite Spongebob character is." The boy would have been more likely to answer, because it's phrased more like a question and not a statement.

The boy could have also been suspiscious of the psychologist. Back when I was 12/13 and thought that Pokemon was the coolest thing ever, if a middle-aged person came up to me and said "I have a favourite Pokemon", my first instinct would have been to run away; as that person was likely a child molestor. Not that the psychologist was likely to be a child molestor, but the boy probably picked up on the fact that this person in all likelihood does NOT watch Spongebob and is lying.

That show is actually what made me feel like coming back. I saw the struggles these kids were going through and i thought of a lot of you. Not that a lot of you were like that but I feel like I was an a-hole to a lot of you undeservingly.

You guys are my friends and I wish I could give you all a great big hug all together and each as an individual.

Tim, make all the posts you want. You're a very open man. Be proud my friend.

To all the people that I rip on for making grammatical mistakes, tell me to take a flying leap. I make mistakes too. You're probably better than me at something.

I saw that and found the shrink who asked the Spongebob question too peppy and annoying. I CAN'T stand peppy people. I personaly would have told her she annoyed me so maybe that kid was just trying to be polite.

What Katie_WPG said.

Last edited by PunkyKat on 28 Nov 2008, 11:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ASD's are not diseases. While there is a strong genetic predisposition, there is no way to know if a family will have one child on the spectrum or 15 if they keep procreating. Both parents in this case seem to have stong ASD traits if not on the spectrum themselves, which of course would seem to strengthen the probablility. Their children range from quite "classic" to one child with PDD-NOS who quite strongly resembles ME. My husband even stated, "Look, honey, there's you," when he saw her sitting alone reading a book while the other children in her class were playing.
I have a Master's Degree, I have a home and own a rental that produces income, I'm almost out of debt, I have a lovely child, I have a few long-term friends (I mostly talk online with them but we meet up now and again), and I resent that someone feels I don't deserve to exist simply because my neurological make-up is a bit different. ASD's do cause many challenges but also many gifts, and while this permeates my existence it does not totally define me. Being NT does not guarantee a perfect, stress-free life, and being on the spectrum does not necessarily mean one won't have a great life... just with some challenges. Degree of severity of symptoms doesn't necessarily limit a person either, there are so many cases of very severely affected people who overcome their challenges to lead wonderful lives and acheive great things. I'm sorry that you feel we are so "diseased," but we are just different from the norm. sometimes that's a great thing.

Hm, 6 children.

The first two fulfill the bare minimum needed to maintain a stable population. The third is easily explicable - it helps keep an equilibrium after a child dies before procreating. The fourth and thereafter, though, seem unnecessary in a population that is set to exceed the entire planet's short-term carrying population.

I can understand wanting to have 6 children. What I can't understand is creating 6 children when you could have made 0-3 and adopted the rest.

Come on, there are children out there who are orphans (or whose status would be improved by being orphaned) and these people really think that mixing their DNA together a few more times just to see what will happen, instead of caring for a pre-made child (which, btw, saves you a lot of money and stress from another pregnancy), who is unlikely to end up in a good household, is a good idea?

That just feels irresponsible to me. Really childishly self-centered, and irresponsible.

(note: I am not saying that everyone should adopt but, if you have 4+ children, adopting one instead of making another is the least you can do...)

I recall seeing that program and thought that it was not too bad and all. I'll admit that most of the programs that often relate to people within the spectrum tend to sometimes present a negative view of sorts but, mind you though all people in the spectrum have their ups and downs.

Adoptions cost money. Adopting a foster child is the cheapest. Only several thousand dollars but lot of them have problems than regular kids so people are more likely to rather adopt a baby if they are lucky to get one. I don't know how hard that is.

I don't understand why [people are against having autistic kids. It seems ironic that we don't want a cure, we get mad when an autistic child gets killed, now people are acting like having more is a bad thing after having two kids on the spectrum?

Maybe they just wanted a large family?

Having a child IS a selfish thing to do. You don't make one for the childs sake. You do it for YOU, and/or(in some cases) your partner.

That show's on Discovery Health right now. AutismX6. It's very realistic. I am reminded somewhat of my own childhood. I stimmed in the same way as the severly autistic girl, but I had the ability to speak and my cognitive ability was much higher. I also climbed a lot, much like the toddler boy. I was constantly moving and climbing, very tactile and tearing stuff up a lot, much like the two more affected children.
The only difference between me and the two more affected children was my cognitive ability and my development wasn't as delayed. Maybe that's what was so surprising to the clinicians at the Health Sciences Center where I went for so many evaluations?

yea i jsut watched it right now as well, i liked it. I noticed the severely autistic girl reminded a lot of me as well. I'm also a huge climber, and seem to enjoy a lot of the things there doing like when ppl read books like dr suesss books, i get so flappy. The sad part though i always think about is that i see these autistic kids who are severe and know i have some of those traits today as an adult. The little girl with pddnos was putting away utensils and etc, i still have problems just cleaning up after myself, usually somebody else does it, thank gosh for my dog hes my vacume lol. I think the first time i actually helped put away utensils was in my teens . I watched the little sarah not interact saw myself, watched ammon head bob and destroy things saw myself, for example when he spilled the drink and played in it on the carpet, that was so me lol. They were saying i dont know where theyll be and how their accepting they might be group homes as adults, and i'm so much like them as an adult, and its concernin in a way. I honestly dont know what the heck will happen to me when my mother dies, i'm screwed, i'll be 24, and still need her to do my hair, make me food, buy me stuff, need her to be my advocate at drs because im just completely clueless and she does all the paper work and talks, while i just sit there. Just last year she bought me my first credit card, and with the help of her, my bf and brother i can use it. I drink from a sip cup because i spill everywhere, its safer and easier for everybody else. I have to let her know where im going all the time, because i can't always be left alone. I feel like sometimes watching shows like these kinda makes me wish there was a cure, but then that quickly passes in seconds, i kinda live in the moment, a lot of the time weirdly lol. but yea it was a good show, just another reality check to me, and next time it aires im making my bf watch and mother.